Contrary to common expectation, there were no rampaging wild animals through the campsite to cause havoc or mayhem during the night. We had all slept, after a fashion! It takes a while to get used to lying on the ground with only thin soft foam mattress. But that’s camping in the wild.

Not far from the campsite we came across a troupe of baboons waking to the new day – their hair a halo in the early morning light. They were on fallen tree branches just a couple of feet off the track. We spent some five or so minutes watching their antics before moving on.

A very short distance further along the track we stopped quickly as a leopard crossed the track. There is no forward vision from the truck so nobody other than the two in the cabin saw the big cat. The driver did stop though. The monkeys in the surrounding trees were putting up a loud song and dance emitting their alarm calls. We waited. And, sure enough, we spotted some movement in the bushes and a fleeting glimpse of the cat. Then nothing for awhile, but then, a better look at the magnificent beast as it slowly walked away, this time completely disappearing into the undergrowth. What a treat, particularly for those on board who were on their first trip to Africa. It took until my fourth trip to the continent to see a leopard and Ingwe said he would do 20-30 drives between spottings!

On our four hour circumnavigation of the lake we saw waterbuck, antelope, buffalo, giraffe, black and white rhino, jackal, hippo at a distance, and colobos monkeys, and they were a first for me.

Colobus, with their distinct black and white colouring and long bushy tipped tail do stand out clearly in the trees …but only once they have moved so you can spot them. Those lovely long tails were almost their undoing. They were once highly prized by tribespeople as ‘fly whisks’! And their pelts were highly prized too as part of traditional costumes, as well as for rugs and mats.

Buffalo are not animals to be messed about with! They weigh-in at anywhere between 500 and 800 kgs and are reputed to have a temper that should not be aroused. When males ‘face-off’ in the rutting season, they interlock those massive horns and push each other in a trial of strength to find out just who is boss. The record length for a set of horns is more than 1.5m.

Buffalo graze in the early morning, in the late afternoon and at night, so these were more interested in food than us. After feeding, they love to wallow in mud and there’s plenty by the lake for that. In the heat of the day, they sensibly lie in long grass or under trees to chew their cud.

The white bird beside several of the cows are cattle egrets. They get an easy feed by picking up insects disturbed by the movement of the buffaloes. Another bird that’s often seen travelling with buffalo is the oxpecker or tick bird. They feed on ticks and biting flies and help to clean up wounds. The buffalo put up with their presence even when these little birds try to get a feed inside the buffalo’s ear.

Another big animal grazing in the early morning was this rhinoceros. Both black and white (or wide) Rhinoceros are endangered because of the market for just one part of their body – their horns. When poachers kill a rhino, they take the horns and run – or fly off in helicopters. It’s a lucrative business with rhino horn deemed to have almost supernatural powers in medicine in Asia and the far East – and horn being carved into the handles for daggers in places like Yemen where such daggers have been prized symbols of manhood. Armed guards monitor most of the rhinoceros ranges, at least in parks and reserves such as this one at Lake Nakuru.

Giraffes are the tallest animals in the world today with males growing up to 5.5m (that’s 18ft) . That’s fairly common knowledge. But what is less widely known is that the giraffe’s improbably long neck has only seven neck vertebrae – the same as we humans have! And those necks can come in for a tough time when male giraffe’s try to establish dominance in the herd by ‘necking’ . Now, this is not to be confused with another human connotation of the word ‘necking’. This is a ritualised form of fighting in which the opposing giraffes fight standing side by side and swing their long necks at each other’s bodies, often entwining necks. That only happens when there’s a lady giraffe involved, of course. At other times that neck is used to reach up for the tenderest shoots and they can be 5 – 6 ms off the ground.

The giraffes we saw at Lake Nakuru were Rothschild’s Giraffes. They are paler, and have a less jagged pattern on their coats than the common Masai Giraffe and they usually have no patterning on their lower legs. There is a third type of giraffe, the Reticulated Giraffe, that’s found in northern Kenya. It has a deep reddish coat with irregular brick- like patterns seemingly ‘drawn’ onto them with narrow white lines.

The beautiful Thomson’s Gazelle is the most water dependent of the African antelopes and so can usually be found in places like this by a lake or good water source. Antelopes like these are the easy, fast food option, the ‘Macdonalds’ of the wildlife world in Africa. They are the prey of a whole lot of predators including lions. leopards, cheetahs, hunting dogs, crocodiles. The young may be taken by baboons, jackals, eagles and even python snakes.

It is a hard world out there in the wild. It’s not easy to think of beautiful animals like this Impala and the gentle gazelles as possible dinner for so many different types of predators. But it’s a fact of life in the wild.

The black-backed Jackal, with its fox-like face and silvery black back, is the commonest of the three species of Jackal in East Africa. Although Jackal’s do kill smaller animals and the young of larger ones, they are very much opportunistic omnivores. Like hyenas, they are great carrion scavengers, but they also feed on birds, reptiles, insects, fruits, eggs and berries.

Apart from all of these animals, there were many birds sighted including pelican, marabou and yellow-billed storks, spoonbills, a buzzard, hamerkop and ostrich. It was a very satisfying drive.

The name Hamerkop comes from an Africaans word meaning ‘hammer head’ – an apt description. It looks a bit like a stork or a heron but it is not related to either of those. Many Africans are superstitious about this bird believing that, if harmed in any way, it will bring bad luck. And that’s probably been a bit of good luck for the Hamerkop. That way, it doesn’t end up on someone’s BBQ or in a hot pot!

Ostrich, on the other hand, are farmed in Africa for their meat, their eggs and their feathers. But these two birds are safe in the National Park at Lake Nakuru. The male is the one with black feathers. He usually sits on the eggs at night. The female has feathers more the colour of dried grass to act as camouflage when it’s her turn to sit on the eggs in the day time. Although more than one female is likely to mate with the male and lay eggs in HIS nest, the ‘senior’ female helps with the hatching process.

Thanks to my good Panasonic DMC-TZ 20 camera with its decent tele lens, I could see that the birds adorning the Acacia tree were the very gregarious, long legged, Yellow-billed Storks. These birds are easy to identify with their white bodies finished off with black wings and tails and their bare red faces sporting long yellow bills.

And down by the lake again there were yet more storks, the Marabou sharing the waters edge with some Pelicans and Gulls. These Marabou should put their name in the ring for the prize of ugliest bird. Vultures could give them a run for their money, but these birds push ‘ugly’ to the limit!

Here’s a Marabou up close – with a face only a mother could love. And it doesn’t even have the rather grotesque pendulous throat sac sported by some adults! And another thing that is really quite off-putting about Marabous: that white colour on their legs is actually, dare I say it, ‘pooh’. Yes, to help keep themselves cool when it is hot, they defecate down their legs. Cool, eh?

Marabou Storks might be ugly, but they do perform an important function in the wild by cleaning up carrion and waste in the environment. However, marabous have increasingly become dependent on human garbage and these huge birds can be found around African rubbish dumps.

Now let us turn our minds from ugly storks to some of the finer things in life – flowering plants. Even on a long day out on safari drives, there is usually some opportunity to look for flowers.

There comes a time when legs must be stretched – a time when ladies disappear off to the left and men to the right! And that gave me the perfect opportunity to hunt around for a flowering plant or two. I’m not sure what these are called but here they are.

And there you have it – a day out on safari at Lake Nakuru National Park. If you have never had the opportunity to do such a safari drive, I hope you have enjoyed the experience with me. And if you have, I hope this has brought back many happy memories of being with wildlife. D

Our first day on the road – Lake Nakuru was our destination with a stop at the Rift Valley view point and a visit to the Saidia Orphanage in Gilgil along the way.

Everyone was keen to get going on this African adventure. We were only 15 minutes late leaving Nairobi and that was partly due to the fact that we were travelling in a brand new truck. The major problem was that the lockers on board were not as big as we had expected from reading the tour brochure. The crew were somewhat dismayed. Things were different from what they expected, as well. Many things had to be rearranged and repacked. Eventually everything was in and off we went. Our first stop was at a local supermarket where last minute personal items could be bought and the crew could complete the outfit of the truck to meet their impending requirements.

At this viewpoint stop, there were a host of curio shops all selling ethnic things and the stop was also the first introduction for some of the group to the hassles of being pestered by people trying to earn a meagre living out of encouraging people to buy things they never intended, nor wanted, to buy. Just what do you do with all these things that just do not fit into our homes when we get home? Of course they get put in the bottom draw, or worse still, get given to family and friends who have even less interest in them! A great learning experience for future, similar encounters, of which there will be many if my previous experiences are anything to go by.We climbed a little further up into some low mist and fog which obscured the view of Lake Naivasha, an area which grows many cut flowers, including roses, for the European market.

Our lunch stop was in Gilgil and, while Juma prepared our lunch, we visited the Saidia Orphanage. This institution was established by three grandmothers Jill Simpson MBE, Teresa Wahito and Jane Kinuthia. They saw the need to help the many abandoned babies in the area. Jill sadly passed away in October 2009, but Jane and Teresa continue the work today.

They have 57 kids at the moment in this programme, some of them having come to the orphanage only hours old. As well, now there are three other programmes that are run in association with the original orphanage: first, badly behaved kids; secondly, mistreated kids; and lastly, kids born to HIV infected mums who neither want nor are capable of looking after their babies. You can find out more about the work these women are doing to give these kids a better life on their web site:

John proudly showed me the children’s paintings that decorate parts of the buildings. This colourful elephant adorns one of the water tanks. The name NDOVU is the local word for elephant. Other paintings were of a lion, a giraffe and a bat.

This visit to Saidia Orphanage left us all with plenty to think about. We had great admiration for these visionary, hardworking ‘grandmothers’ who are giving at least some children the chance of a better life. As they had explained to us: “There is no social security net in Kenya. The extended family is still very strong and orphaned children would normally be taken in by an aunt or grannie. But kids with no family are on their own, and today many families have lost the entire parent generation to AIDS.” And that, in itself, is food for thought.

In the afternoon, we drove on to Lake Nakuru National Park, arriving mid afternoon. The first task was to put up our tents for the very first time, a bit of a trial for some. Thankfully, I had one of these small tents to myself.

After this exciting activity we went on our first game drive. Lake Nakuru has considerably more water in it than when Jennie and I were there last in 2004. This meant we could not get as close to the shore as we did the last time but it also meant that there were many more birds to see.

We also saw lots of baboons, a couple of white rhinos, a hippo in the distance, gazelle, eland, antelopes, zebra, buffalo, water buck, and a venerable old tortoise – and an obscured lion sleeping on a rock. We went back to camp very happy, but tired, after a long day. I was looking forward to a sleep – if sleep could be had sleeping on a thin mattress on the ground. And I was looking forward to finding even more animals on our next drive. I was really glad I’d the opportunity to come back to Lake Nakuru.

We drove through a heavy thunderstorm on our way back to camp. It missed our tents, thankfully. Our camping location within the park was unfenced so it was no real surprise when a buffalo strolled through between our tents during our after dinner briefing. This caused some consternation amongst the group. Signs of strain were evident on many faces as nocturnal meanderings to the loo were erased from the mind. We’ll see what the night brings! D